LINE & TRIGGER.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 736, 14 April 1904, Page 12

LINE & TRIGGER.

(By ‘

“Gillie.”)

The consignment of twelve deer, the o-ift to the Rotorua Rod and Gun Club from Mr T. C. Chirnside, of Wirribee. Victoria, arrived at Rotorua in splendid condition.

The season during which native and imported game may be taken will open on May 1 next, and close on July 31, except as to deei and goodwits, for which a separate season is fixed. As this year will be a close season for native pigeon, kakas, and pukekos, the native game to be shot will probably only include wild duck 1 , teal, wild geese, and swan. The blue, or mountain duck, is declared to. be protected, also the Paradise duck in most districts. ‘

A few years ago (writes Mr R. B. Marston in the “Fishing Gazette”) it was said in some quarters that rainbows should not be fished for until late in the summer, as they spawned in May or April. Mr Wadham’s experience and that of other breeders goes to prove that it is quite fair to fish for rainbows in May. It is very extraordinary that with all the plantings of rainbow trout in this country we seem to have absolutely no proof that the fish breed arJd increase in a wild state —they spawn, and that is the end of it. I am afraid that this is too often the case with trout artificially bred and turned into a water for stocking purposes. Of late years German biologists have proved beyond question that in domesticated trout —that is, trout bred and fed in confinement —the eggs gradually become diseased, especially in fish bred right up to the spawning time and with unsuitable food —horseflesh is condemned for one. It would be an interesting experiment if some fish-breeder would sow some redds in a suitable stream with eyed rainbow eggs to see if they will hatch out. A French fish-breeder who called on me the other day told me that the rainbow trout appeared to thrive and breed in a wild state in some of the rivers of the south-west of France. He told me that he bred large quantities of trout fry, and by arrangement with landowners he stocked waters for them, and when the fish are large enough for the market they are netted out and sold, half the proceeds belonging to the owner of the water and the other half to him. In this country it does not pay to rear trout for the market —at any rate, it pays much better to rear them to sell for trout streams and lakes. In another twenty or thirty years I believe the refuse from towns and factories will be so purified that many

waters which have long been only sewers will again become clear and full of fish.

The more we study birds the more they seem to baff'e our science. Buzzards have been seen to ascend loooft perpendicularly in a minute or so, in a dead calm, without visible motion of their outstretched wings. A Virginian plover starts one evening from Labrador and arrives next morning in Brazil, doing the journey on an empty stomach without stopping on the way. Young birds go by themselves thousands of miles on a journey they have never been before.

The following additional regulation under “The Fisheries Constrvation Act, 1884,” and its amendments is gazetted : —“No person shall cast or throw into any stream in which trout or salmon exist or have been liberated, or shall allow to flow into, or place near the bank or margin of any such stream, any sawdust or sawmill refuse, lime, sheep dip, flaxmill refuse, or any other matter or liquid that is noxious, poisonous, or injurious to fish, provided that nothing herein contained shall extend to prohibit the depositing in such stream of debris from any mining claim.” The penalty is not less than £2 or more than £5O.